Breaker's Point Bad Boy Billionaires Boxset (17 page)

S
itting
on the edge of the hospital bed, Ellie dangled her legs over the edge and waited for the doctor to return with the all clear. Spending the night in hospital hadn’t been her intention but the suspected concussion had changed that and she’d been ordered to stay for observation.

Closing her eyes, the image of the sea rushing up to meet her as she’d gone over the edge of the cliff was seared onto the inside of her mind.

A knock on the door made Ellie jump and her eyes flew open as the doctor strode into the centre of the room, her chart in his hand.

“Well, Miss Blair, it seems we’ll be able to release you today as long as you promise to take it easy for the next few days.”

Ellie nodded but she knew that sort of promise was impossible, there was simply too much to do and plan. The thought of her mother’s funeral left Ellie with an ache in her chest.

“I’ll make sure she takes it easy, Doc.”

Ellie’s heart flipped in her chest at the mere sound of Stuart’s voice. She watched him as he moved into the room, heading straight for her. His hand caught hers, their fingers interlocking as he leaned down to her and brushed his mouth against her lips.

“I missed you.”

Stuart’s voice was barely a whisper but Ellie heard every word and they filled her with joy.

“I missed you too,” Ellie said, a smile lighting up her face.

“Well then, I’ll let you get sorted and you’ll just need to sign a few forms before you leave,” The doctor said, his tone betraying the awkwardness he obviously felt.

“Thank you!” He disappeared through the door as Ellie called out after him.

“I thought he’d never leave.” Stuart’s voice dipped to a growl and a shiver rolled through Ellie.

He positioned himself in front of her, pressing between her legs as he cupped her face in his hands. Stuart’s eyes searched Ellie’s face and a blush crept up over her cheeks.

“What’s wrong?” She said, wriggling in his grip.

“Nothing, Ellie, everything is perfect now.”

Stuart kissed her again but this time it wasn’t the mere brushing of lips. Stuart’s touch scorched along Ellie’s skin as his mouth crashed against hers, his tongue slid along her lips and Ellie opened to him.

Her head swam in dizzying circles as the kiss deepened and Stuart’s hands slid around her body, drawing her closer to him.

When Stuart finally pulled away, Ellie was left breathless and she fought to regain her composure.

He winced as he straightened up and Ellie automatically reached out to him.

“How are you feeling?”

He shrugged and then winced again.

“I’ve had worse, nothing is broken at least, just badly bruised.” Stuart propped himself against the edge of the bed as he spoke. “How about you? How was the night?”

Ellie shook her head and pushed off the edge of the bed. The moment her feet hit the floor a feeling of dizziness washed over her and Stuart’s strong arms caught her before she fell.

“Honestly, I can’t wait to get out of here and go home.”

Stuart’s face changed, and Ellie struggled to read his expression.

“About going home, when I had to leave you in here last night I got to thinking about that…”

“Stuart what’s wrong?”

A gnawing feeling of fear opened up in the pit of Ellie’s stomach.

“Well, I was thinking about home and well, I don’t think I could consider any place to be home without you in it… I was hoping you’d agree to moving in with me? We could find a place of our own.”

Ellie felt her mouth drop, the feeling of fear instantly disappeared. A slow smile spread across her face.

“Ellie, I love you.”

Stuart’s words left her speechless and all Ellie could do in answer was throw her arms around his neck.

“I’ll take that as a yes then?” He said, holding her against him.

“Yes,” Ellie whispered to him, “I love you too.”

Stuart grinned and wrapped his arm around Ellie’s shoulder as he reached down and scooped her bag up from the floor.

“Then let’s go home, we have a lot of plans to make and I know exactly where we should begin.”

The predatory look in Stuart’s eyes told Ellie, the only planning he intended on doing would revolve around how to get her out of her clothes. With a smile she let him lead her from the hospital room. As far as she was concerned as long as she was in his arms, nothing else mattered.

G
ripping
the picture in his hands, Riley’s heart constricted in his chest at the mere sight of the glossy photograph he’d slid from the large brown envelope.

Spying on her like this wasn’t right. It didn’t feel right to be intruding in a way that wasn’t like him at all. He’d never been the type to butt in where he wasn’t wanted and Holly had made it more than clear that she didn’t want him involved in her business.

But how could he ignore it?

How could he ignore the look of terror she wore in the picture he held?

His breath caught in his chest as he remembered the kiss they had shared that night… The night before it had all gone to hell.

He’d made a mistake and it was high time he set it all straight; that was, if she’d allow him.

A quiet knock on the heavy oak door of his office had Riley quickly pushing the picture back into the envelope and sliding it beneath the heaped and colourful cardboard folders that sat atop the polished surface of the heavy desk.

“Come in,” he said, leaning back into his leather winged chair.

The door slammed open, the weight of it carrying it back until it smacked into the wall plaster with a resounding crack.

Holly McCombe strode into the room, her blonde hair streaming out behind her as her grey eyes snapped with anger.

“Who the hell do you think you are, Riley Reynolds? How dare you interfere. I told you, I didn’t want you involved!”

Riley lifted his hands in mock surrender as he struggled to keep his emotions in check.

It was one thing to see Holly in a photograph, it was something else entirely to see her in reality.

As far as Riley was concerned she was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on. Of course it was too late now to be having revelations about how stunning she was. He’d screwed it all up a long time ago.

“And I’ve done exactly as you asked, I haven’t interfered.”

“Don’t lie,” Holly hissed, the words struggling to escape from between gritted teeth as she slammed her hands down onto the table and stared him squarely in the eye.

“I’m not stupid, Riley, I know it was one of your men up there taking photographs…”

Riley shook his head and smiled, a wide smile designed to disarm the situation.

And perhaps with any woman other than Holly it might have worked. But she was different, always had been.

“I want the pictures, Riley, and I want them now.”

“Holly, you’re mistaken, I haven’t interfered. You told me you could handle this and I’ve left you alone to do just that.”

Something in her face shifted, a sudden flicker of uncertainty in her eyes that hadn’t been there before and Riley nearly surrendered the photographs to her then and there.

If there was one thing he had learned since they had broken up, it was that he would do anything to try and help ease her fear and concern.

“If it wasn’t you, then that means it was…”

Holly cut off, her voice choked.

Riley stood and moved around the desk, catching her in his arms as she slumped against him.

The feel of her body so close to his sent his heart thudding in his chest and Riley felt his mouth going dry.

Being this close to her was a bad idea… It made him think of all the things he longed to do… Spin her in his arms and crush her rich and luscious curves against his chest, taste the sweet nectar of her lips…

Riley shook the image from his mind and guided her to the couch in the corner of the office.

Her face was pale and as he crouched down in front of her, he noticed the first tear track down across the apple of her cheek.

“Don’t cry, Holly, please…”

“I was so sure it was you. At least if you’d been the one to take the picture then I wouldn’t have to worry. But if it wasn’t you then that means he’s been watching me and I didn’t even know it… Oh God.”

Riley watched as she buried her face in her hands and started to sob.

“Holly, why won’t you let me help?”

“Because if you’re involved, I’m afraid of what he’ll do.”

“Is Marcus really that bad?”

Riley already knew the answer to that question. The look of terror on Holly’s face in the photograph as Marcus held her by the arm was enough to convince him of that.

“He’s worse…”

She paused and stared up at him, the look in her eyes filling Riley with a hope he’d never dared admit even to himself.

“Holly, leaving you was a mistake, one I’ve regretted every day since I allowed myself to be persuaded to make it…”

She shook her head, her grey eyes a stormy mass of emotions that Riley felt mirrored within himself.

“Don’t say it… If you say it, Riley, it can’t ever be taken back. And I’m not sure what would happen if you said it.”

“Holly, I…”

She leaned into him and pressed her fingers to his lips, effectively silencing him. Riley froze, the touch of her soft fingers against his lips made him want to throw caution to the wind.

“I have to marry Marcus, you and I both know that he’ll kill those I love, the ones I hold most dear, if I don’t… He’d kill you…” Holly’s voice broke off but she didn’t shed any more tears, despite the fact that Riley could see them trembling along her lashes.

“I have to go…”

She pushed away from him and up onto her feet.

Riley fought the urge to grab her hand, to confess to her that he had been the one keeping track of her. But she wouldn’t understand, she would see it as a betrayal and Riley couldn’t look at it that way.

As far as he was concerned if he could gather enough evidence against Marcus Stark, any evidence, then Holly could be done with him.

Instead he remained on his knee next to the couch as he watched her leave, the ghost of her touch still tingling against his lips.

S
itting
in the driver’s seat of her black sports convertible, Holly dug her fingers into the smooth round leather surface of the steering wheel.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, smearing her eyeliner and causing her normally immaculate mascara to run in rivulets down her face. She’d done so much crying lately that she was rapidly starting to believe she needed to invest in waterproof makeup.

Get a grip, Holly.

Crying was a waste of time. All it ever seemed to achieve as far as Holly was concerned was to make her feel even weaker and out of control than before. And yet it was the only thing she felt she actually had any control over.

With the back of her hand, Holly swiped at the tears that continued to leave dark tracks on her face.

If he saw her like this then he would want to know why she was crying. If she lied, he would know, especially if he really was the one who had taken the pictures from the top of the hill overlooking the terrace that night.

Why couldn’t it have been Riley?

Sweet, charming, handsome Riley…

He was everything a man should be and simply thinking about him brought a fresh flood of tears trickling from her eyes.

With her vision blurred, Holly struggled to keep the car moving forward down the winding hill on her side of the road.

The sound of a car horn blaring had Holly swerve the car back over the line onto her side once more.

Her tyres sprayed gravel as the car bumped onto the hard shoulder and Holly slammed on the brakes making the engine groan.

The high-pitched scream of metal on metal twisting and buckling under pressure as the side of the car slid along the metal barrier filled her with dread.

The car skidded to a stop and Holly was left holding the steering wheel in a death grip, her knuckles white and bloodless.

The faint sound of the engine ticking over as it waited for her to make her next move pulled her from the shock of a close call.

And it was a close call.

She released the steering wheel, her hands stiff and cramped with the force that she had held onto the wheel with. Pressing a button the seat belt zipped free and Holly pushed the driver’s door open, her expensive heels crunching on the hard, sharp gravel that lined the edge of the road. Expensive heels that helped create the image she needed to maintain. An image that was now more of a prison than anything else.

It had after all contributed to the direction her life had spiralled into.

A cool breeze rifled through her hair and for a moment Holly closed her eyes, her mind immediately conjuring a memory of Riley’s hand on the back of her neck.

The feel of his fingers in her hair as he had drawn her against him.

The crush of his mouth against her own stole her breath.

The taste of the fresh sea breeze reminded her of the salt on his lips as their kiss had deepened, igniting a passion within them. Igniting a fire within Holly that still yearned for him.

She couldn’t have these thoughts. These were the thoughts of a woman on the verge of doing something very stupid and she couldn’t allow it.

Holly swallowed back the sob that threatened to escape her and pushed all thoughts of Riley from her mind. It was safer for him if she didn’t think of him.

Moving around the car she stared down at the damage her carelessness had caused.

She didn’t even like driving and she tried to avoid it whenever possible.

The passenger side of the car was dented, the black paint ripped and ruined from the barrier she had struck as the car had skidded onto the hard shoulder.

Marcus wouldn’t be happy when he saw the damage. It wasn’t his car and it shouldn’t have mattered but he was the type of man who seemed to think that everything was his.

Holly swallowed back the bile that threatened to crawl up the back of her throat at the thought of him.

How had she gotten into this mess?

She climbed back into the car and restarted the engine. If she thought of nothing, simply pushed everything from her mind, then perhaps by the time she made it back to the house he wouldn’t be able to see through her lies. She’d be calm and he’d leave her alone.

Of course if she was really lucky he wouldn’t even be there.

H
olly drew
the car to a halt outside the house she had once called home. A house that had once belonged to her parents. It never ceased to amaze her how easy it was for something so precious to become something so terrible. How a gambling debt could destroy everything she had ever worked for.

Sliding her finger across the remote control, Holly watched as the garage doors slowly rattled upward. Icy fear slid down her spine as a man staggered into view, but it wasn’t Marcus.

The fear she had felt just moments before vanished and Holly was left with a hollow pit of despair low in her stomach.

Niall McCombe staggered into view, the empty bottle of whiskey still clutched in his hands.

Holly’s heart sank in her chest as she caught the glassy-eyed confused look on his face.

Drunk, again.

It was the only thing her father knew how to do these days.

Holly hopped out of the car and moved towards him, catching him as he swayed in against her body, his eyes filling with recognition as she came into view.

“Holly… What are you doing out here?”

His words, although a little slurred, were surprisingly clear and it instantly made Holly wonder how long he had been locked in the garage.

“Dad, how long have you been out here? How did you end up the garage?”

Holly wrapped her arm around his waist, pulling his arm over her shoulder in an attempt to move him in the direction of the house.

“That bastard left me out here…”

Holly struggled to hold onto him as Niall made a sudden drunken shuffle forward as though to take a swing at someone only he could see.

It didn’t take much for Holly to guess at who had locked him in the garage.

“Marcus locked you out here?”

Holly moved around her father and stared up into his face in an attempt to get some sense from him.

He stared down at her, his eyes suddenly unfocused.

“I…”

He didn’t get any other words out as he doubled over towards the ground, taking Holly with him as he started to vomit.

The smell was pungent, burning at the back of Holly’s nose and throat as her eyes watered and she fought to not be sick herself. That was the last thing she wanted to do.

He continued to heave, the vomit pouring out of him like water as he knelt on the ground. It didn’t shock Holly. The sad truth was that she was used to her father getting sick now.

Instead she held him, like he had held her when she was a child and found herself ill with the flu.

He clutched at her hand, the movement filled with desperation and pain.

“I’m sorry, Holly, I’m so sorry for everything… I didn’t mean for this to happen…”

A moment of lucidity.

The more his guilt seemed to eat away at him, the more he seemed to be slipping away from her and Holly was at a loss as to how she could help him anymore.

“Come on, Dad, we need to get you inside.”

He clutched at her arm a little harder.

“Forgive me…”

“Always,” she said, plastering a smile on her face in an attempt to bury the pain-filled emotions that threatened to swell within her and drown her in tears.

He climbed unsteadily to his feet, letting the empty whiskey bottle drop from his hands and shatter on the drive.

Holly ignored it as she wrapped her arms tightly around his body and struggled to walk him slowly towards the house. They made it to the steps before he hesitated and his legs buckled beneath him once more.

“I can’t go back in there.”

“Don’t be daft, Dad. We’ll get you inside and cleaned up. A shower and some sleep will do you a world of good.”

Niall shook his head and let his gaze drop to the steps. “I can’t… I was sick and when Marcus found me he said I belonged in the garage like the animal I was, so he banned me from the house, Holly, from my own goddamned house.”

She stared down at her father in horror, bile rising in the back of her throat. Marcus was a vile excuse for a man. She’d often wondered if he was even a human or just pure monster but this was a new low even for him.

“I’ll take care of it. You’re not banned from the house, Dad, please just come inside with me.”

Her father started to sob on the steps, his cries pitiful and childlike as he clutched at her legs and Holly inwardly cursed Marcus’ cruelty.

“I’ve made such a mess of everything and I don’t know how to set it right.” Her father’s words were garbled but Holly had listened to enough of his drunken pleas over the years and she understood him.

“Dad, if you don’t get up then I’ll have to get one of the guards to come and help me and…”

Holly’s insides twisted, her words stuck on the tip of her tongue as though her mouth was coated with glue. There was a time when asking for help from the bodyguards wouldn’t have filled her with such horror but not now, not since Marcus had arrived.

Now asking the guards for anything was like speaking directly to Marcus. It wasn’t something she ever wanted to do but she also knew it would be far worse for her and her father if Marcus found them both on the steps.

Her unspoken threat seemed to have its desired effect and she watched as her father scrubbed the back of his hand across his face. His tear-stained face was mottled with anger as he stared up at her.

“You know what those bastards would do, Holly, and you’d still draw them down on me? Where’s my daughter gone? The kind and beautiful little girl who always wanted to protect me?”

“Dad, please, I didn’t mean it, I…” She trailed off as he staggered to his feet and brushed her hands away.

“Don’t ‘Dad’ me, I stopped being your father the day you agreed to marry that bastard Marcus.”

Holly let him push her away, tears stinging the back of her eyes as she hugged her arms to her body.

He’d slipped so far, sometimes she wondered if he’d slipped so far from her that the man she’d loved and looked up to was completely gone.

She didn’t want to care. If she was utterly honest with herself, he’d loved the bottle more than he’d ever loved her. It was his fault they were in this mess to begin with and now he couldn’t even remember what she’d done to protect him, the reason she’d agreed to Marcus’ proposal.

Niall slipped on the top step, his body going down hard on the cold concrete steps.

Holly started towards him but the look he gave her over his shoulder was enough to halt her movement and she froze. There was a hatred in his eyes that she’d never seen before.

He climbed to his feet once more and started into the house without a backwards glance, leaving Holly to stare after him, the ache in her chest spreading through her body until she was completely numb.